Microsemi Accelerates the Industry’s Transition to Enterprise PCIe SSDs With Production Release of its Mainstream Flashtec PCIe Controllers

Aug 14, 2017

Hong Kong, China, August 14, 2017 /ChinaNewswire.com/ - Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, announced the production release of its Flashtec#8482; NVM Express (NVMe) 2108 eight-channel controllers, enabling leading enterprises and data centers worldwide to realize cost- and power-efficient high capacity solid state drives (SSDs). The devices extend Microsemi’s leadership in the NVMe controller segment with robust mainstream performance and support for capacities to 16GB and greater. Customers will enjoy the architectural consistency of the Flashtec NVMe Controller product line through high firmware reusability by minimizing engineering expense. Delivered in a 17x17mm package, the new line of controllers supports all popular form factors including M.2, U.2 and half-height half-length (HHHL) add-in cards.

“The production release of our Flashtec NVMe2108 controllers enables customers to take advantage of the same enterprise grade features and mature enterprise architecture they have come to expect from Microsemi, with lower power and cost structure to align with the mainstream PCIe segment,” said Derek Dicker, vice president and business unit manager of performance storage at Microsemi. “We look forward to capitalizing on the exciting market growth opportunities with these devices, and we will continue leveraging Microsemi’s deep expertise to deliver PCIe NVMe SSD controller solutions for demanding storage system, server and rack scale architecture data center applications.”

According to market research firm IDC’s report titled, “Worldwide Solid State Drive Forecast, 2017-2021,” the industry continues to transition rapidly toward PCIe-based SSDs, which are estimated to be more than 50 percent of enterprise SSD revenue by 2021. A major driver of this growth stems from NVMe SSDs displacing serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) SSDs as price points of NVMe SSDs narrow toward comparable SATA SSDs.

“The announcement of Microsemi’s new Flashtec devices demonstrates how the company continues to accelerate adoption of PCIe flash into the mainstream enterprise market,” said Eric Endebrock, vice president of storage marketing at Micron. “The high capacity these mainstream controllers support is well-aligned to take advantage of Micron’s rapidly ramping 64 layer 512Gb 3D TLC and future technologies.”

The Flashtec NVMe2108 controllers offer a mature architecture with optimized power and cost for mainstream applications, while preserving enterprise features including dual-port, Separate Reference Clock with Independent Spread (SRIS) and end-to-end data protection. They also provide a programmable architecture enabling SSD product differentiation through firmware customizations. Their adaptive low-density parity-check code (LDPC) enables support for current and future generations of Toggle and Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI), including multi-level cell (MLC) and (triple level cell) TLC, as well as QLC in future product developments. The NVMe2108HC and NVMe2108LC variants support different capacity points to align with specific industry needs.

“We are very impressed with the technical capabilities of Microsemi’s NVMe2108 controllers,” said Andy Hsu, CTO of Liteon Storage Group. “These innovative devices allow us to meet the ever-increasing performance, capacity and enterprise features being requested by Liteon’s data center customers.”

“Microsemi’s new mainstream SSD controllers are well-aligned with NAND capacity and low-density parity check (LDPC) trends, which will allow it to support multiple generations of our product development efforts,” said VP S.H. Choi, head of NAND product planning office at SK Hynix. “SK Hynix’s next-generation 72 layer 3D NAND and Microsemi’s advanced LDPC technology will be a great combination for SSDs.”

Product Availability

Microsemi’s Flashtec NVMe2108 controllers are available in volume production quantities now. For more information, visit http://www.microsemi.com/products/storage/flashtec-nvme-controllers/flashtec-nvme-controllers or contact sales.support@microsemi.com.

About Microsemi’s Product Portfolio for Data Center

Microsemi is a premier supplier of innovative semiconductor, board, system, software and services for enterprise and hyperscale data centers, enabling high performance, secure, low power and reliable infrastructure for scalable deployments. Microsemi technologies drive innovation in applications including storage systems, server storage, NVM solutions, Ethernet switching, rack scale architecture, data center interconnect, network timing and power subsystems. Building on a track record of technology leadership, Microsemi’s data center infrastructure portfolio is transforming networks that connect, store and move big data, while lowering the total cost of ownership of deploying next generation services.

The portfolio includes high performance NVMe storage controllers, NVRAM drives, SAS/SATA host bus adapters and RAID controllers enabling high capacity storage architectures, high density PCIe switching and firmware for rack scale architectures, PCIe re-drivers, and Ethernet PHYs for intra-rack connectivity. Microsemi’s product portfolio also includes clock and power management, IEEE1588 integrated circuits (ICs) and NTP servers for synchronization across the data center, as well as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and system-on-chip (SoC) FPGAs to perform secure system management of servers and storage. For more information, visit http://www.microsemi.com/applications/data-center.